BRANDEIS SOCIOLOGY NEWSLETTER
Sept e mbe r 2006
Edite d by Pet er Co nra d, Jud ith Ha nley a nd Nicol e F itzge rald ‘ 07
Volume 17
News from the Chair
Contents
News from the Chair
1
New Faculty join Sociology Department 1 - 2
Faculty Awards
2
Dessima Williams Leaves Department
3
Timmerman’s Book receives Award
3
New Community Based Course
3
Passing Harriet (Skillern) Miller
4
Faculty Notes
4-5
Current Graduate Student Activity
6
News from Department Ph.D’s
7-8
Department Colloquia for 2006-2007
9
New Ph. D’s
9
New M.A.’s
9
New Jobs for Recent Ph.D’s
9
Entering Graduate Students
10
Senior Theses
10
Sarah Shostak (L)
Wendy Cadge (R)
Our department had another banner year last
year, but just a few highlights in the limited
space allotted me. Special welcome to our
two dynamic young assistant professors,
Wendy Cadge and Sara Shostak. Special
congratulations to Karen Hansen, David
Cunningham, and George Ross for their
respective Guggenheim and Fullbright
fellowships! Congratulations also for published
books to Shula Reinharz for JGirls Guide (a
male sequel to follow!), Laura Miller for
Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the
Rationalization of Consumption, and to Gila
Hayim for Instability, Complexity, and
Cultural Change. David Cunningham cotaught a most exciting community-based
learning course in the Mississippi Delta.
Among our many graduate student and alumni
achievements: Bettina Freidin won a
dissertation year fellowship and an NSF grant,
Cameron Macdonald (University of Wisconsin-
Madison) a five-year NIH grant, and Valerie
Leiter (Simmons College) was named a
William T. Grant Scholar for 5 years, a most
prestigious award in the field of youth
research. Welcome to our exciting new
class of Ph.D. and M.A. students! Our senior
honor symposium last year once again
revealed the depth of exciting work among
our undergraduates. Judy Hanley, our
department administrator, and her family
were poignantly featured in a PBS
documentary, Boomers, which was filled
with great sociological and moral insight.
And Dessima Williams leaves us after 13
years of innovative teaching to return to
her work in Grenada full-time. She has left
a lasting mark on the life of our
department. We will all miss her.
- Carmen Sirianni
Two New Faculty Join Sociology Department
We are very fortunate to have two
outstanding Assistant Professors join our
department this year, Sara Shostak and
Wendy Cadge. This is the first time that we
have had two tenure track Assistant
Professors appointed in the same year since
Peter and Shula were appointed in 1981. We
will introduce them both briefly here.
Sara Shostak joins the Brandeis
faculty after having completed a RWJ Health
and Society Scholars fellowship at Columbia
University. Sara first studied sociology as an
undergraduate at Reed College. She then
completed a Master’s in Public Health at
UCLA and was as awarded a Ph.D., with
Distinction, in Sociology from UCSF in August
2003. Her doctoral dissertation, entitled
“Locating Gene-Environment Interaction:
Disciplinary Emergence in the Environmental
Health Sciences, 1950-2000” received both
the Anselm Strauss Special Award for
Distinguished Qualitative Dissertation and the
Diana M. Forsythe Memorial Dissertation
Award for Social Studies of Science,
Technology and Health. From 2003-2004, she
was the DeWitt Stetten, Jr., Memorial Fellow
in the History of Biomedical Sciences and
Technology in the Office of History at the
National Institutes of Health.
Sara’s research endeavors to map
and explicate emerging relationships between
science, medicine, subjectivity and social
organization. Her research agenda implicates
a wide variety of social actors and locations,
and draws heavily on multi-sited
ethnographic research methods, in
tandem with other modes of qualitative
inquiry. She focuses especially on
questions of genetics, risk, identity, and
social order in the domain of
environmental health and in the context
of “brain disorders,” such as epilepsy.
Recently, she has drawn also on
quantitative data to examine how people
use genetic attributions in explaining
disparities in physical health, mental
health, and other measures of personhood
and success in life. Another ongoing
collaborative project focuses on how
genetics can be used as a lever in studies
of social process and social structure.
Sara’s work has been supported by grants
from the National Science Foundation, the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the
University of California Toxic Substances
Research and Teaching Program, the UC
Berkeley Program in Social Studies of
Science and Technology, the UC
Humanities Research Institute, and the
Agency for Health Care Research and
Quality. (See Faculty Notes section for
recent publications.)
This year, Sara will teach
“Sociology of the Body and Health” (Fall
2006), “Environment, Health and Society”
(Spring 2007), and “Field Methods” (Spring
2007). When not working on research and
teaching, you may find her at the beach,
doing yoga, going hiking, or working on a
pottery wheel.
Sociology Newsletter
Fall 2006
Wendy Cadge joins the faculty at
Brandeis University after teaching at Bowdoin
College (2003-04) and completing a Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy
Research Fellowship at Harvard University (20042006). She completed her undergraduate
education at Swarthmore College with majors in
sociology, anthropology and religion and received
her Ph.D. in sociology from Princeton University in
2002.
Wendy’s research focuses broadly on
questions about meaning and identity in the
contemporary United States. Her first book,
Heartwood: the First Generation of Theravada
Buddhism in America (University of Chicago Press,
2005), is an ethnographic study of how immigrant
Buddhists from Thailand and mostly white convert
Buddhists in the U.S. understand and practice
Buddhism in their everyday lives. Her current book
project, Paging God: Religion in the Halls of
Medicine, examines the historical and current
institutional presence of religion and spirituality in
hospitals. It draws from historical materials and
the evolving policies of the Joint Commission for
the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations as
well as from more than one hundred interviews
with hospital chaplains, nurses, and physicians in
large academic medical centers in the greater
Boston area and across the country.
Page 2 of 10
With the support of the Metanexus
Institute, Wendy is also working with several
colleagues on a research project about spiritual
capital in three small cities (Portland, ME;
Olympia, WA; and Danbury, CT) where large
numbers of immigrants have settled since 1990.
Additionally, she has published on religion and
public opinion about same-sex marriage,
conflicts over homosexuality in mainline
Protestant churches, inter-religious dialogues of
Buddhist and Catholic nuns, religion and the
nonprofit sector, religious identity, and other
issues. Her teaching and research have been
supported by the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research
Program, Metanexus Institute, Louisville
Institute, Society for the Scientific Study of
Religion, Teaching Enhancement Fund of the
American Sociological Association, Younger
Scholars in American Religion Program, a
Fulbright IIE Fellowship in Sri Lanka, and other
organizations. She teaches courses in the
sociology of religion, the sociology of health and
medicine, the sociology of sexuality, qualitative
research methods, and introductory sociology.
This fall she will teach undergraduate courses in
the sociology of religion and field methods. (See
Faculty Notes section for recent publications.)
Three Sociology Faculty Receive Prestigious Fellowships
Karen Hansen, David Cunningham and
George Ross have each been awarded a
prestigious fellowship. Karen and David both
received Guggenheim Fellowships while George
received a Fulbright.
Karen received a fellowship from the
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to
pursue research, “In the Wake of the Land Rush:
Encounters between Scandinavian Settlers and
the Dakota Sioux at Spirit Lake, 1900-1930.”
The study focuses on how government policies
deprived the Sioux of their land rights and how
the Sioux and the neighboring Scandinavians
forged a community that still remains. While the
focus of the research is specific, its implications
are broad. As Karen writes in her proposal:
“Using the multiple methods of historical
sociology – a combination of statistical analysis,
archival research, and oral history – and applying
it to a period of history that is still, though only
just, within the memory of key living informants,
this project tackles one of the world’s pressing
problems: the effect of land-taking on the
community that emerges in its aftermath. The
subject is a story repeated throughout history, in
numerous places across the globe, from the
Middle East to southern India to Australia. By
analyzing the dynamic changes in one geographic
place, a Native American reservation during the
period of rapid land transfer (1900-1930), this
project seeks to theorize how legally-encoded
and socially-enacted inequality simultaneously
produced conflict, mutuality, and cooperation.”
The fellowship helps support and extend Karen’s
sabbatical through the summer of 2007.
David received a fellowship from the
Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation to support
his research on the Ku Klux Klan. David’s
project, which is titled “White Hoods and Tar
Heels: The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-era Ku
Klux Klan,” focuses on conditions that led to the
rise and fall of the Klan within some specific
communities in North Carolina but not in others.
David will use interviews, observation and archival
materials to pursue this research. The award will
allow David to be on research leave during the fall
2006 semester, to work on a book manuscript on
the Civil Rights-era Klan.
George received a Fulbright Fellowship to
pursue his research “What Do ‘Europeans’ Think
About the EU? A research project in light of the
fiftieth anniversary of the Treaties of Rome.” As
George notes: “In 2007 the European Union will
celebrate the Fiftieth Anniversary of its founding
in the Treaties of Rome. While good analytical
narratives of the EEC-EC through the later 1970s
exist the deeper logics of the EU’s turbulent last
two decades remain mysterious and disputed…
This project seeks to shed light on one corner of
this obscurity by researching elite ‘European’
versions of this broader understanding. It will do
so by interviewing systematically those most
invested in the EU since the mid-1980s. These men
and women are ‘Europeans’ in a specific insiders’
sense (indeed, the term ‘European’ is widely used
among such insiders) people whose lives have been
deeply invested in the EU through careers either
committed to ‘building Europe’ or to observing
Europe’s building sites professionally.”
It is rare when in a small department of
eleven three faculty receive such competitive
national awards. Congratulations to all.
Sociology Newsletter
Fall 2006
Page 3 of 10
Dessima Williams leaves the Department
As of Fall 2006 Dessima Williams is
leaving her position in the department and
returning to Grenada full-time. Dessima was
a member of our department for 12 years
and made many significant contributions. Of
specific note were her course on “Global
Apartheid” which she taught virtually every
year and her course on women leaders which
was a significant part of the Women and
Gender’s Studies offerings. For the past five
years, Dessima had a joint appointment with
the Sustainable Development Program at the
Heller School and there influenced many
activists and scholars from a range of developing
countries. For the past four years, Dessima
spent one semester at Brandeis and the other
semester in Grenada, where she worked with
Grened, the NGO supporting education that she
helped to create ten years ago. Last April the
department gave Dessima an appreciation and
farewell party that was well-attended and a
tribute to Dessima’s contributions. We all wish
her well in her new endeavors.
Dessima Williams and
Gordie Fellman
Timmerman’s Book Receives an Award
Stefan Timmermans left the
department in Fall 2005 to take a position as a
Professor of Sociology at UCLA. His latest book,
Postmortem: How Medical Examiners Explain
Suspicious Deaths, received this year’s Eliot
Freidson Award from the Medical Sociology
section of the ASA as the outstanding medical
sociology book for 2005-06. Stefan did all the
fieldwork for the book and most of the writing
while he was a member of our department, so
we feel a special connection to this honor.
Many of us recall Stefan’s sometimes grisly
tales of field work in the morgue and in the
medical examiners’ surgeries, especially the
autopsies. Congratulations to Stefan.
Sociology Offers Community-Based Learning Course
In the Mississippi Delta
This past spring semester, I
partnered with Brandeis Anthropologist Mark
Auslander for a special community-based
course offering: “Social Change in American
Communities: Memory and Cultural
Production in the Mississippi Delta.” The
semester-long course featured a ten-day trip
to the Delta, a region known for spectacular
cultural innovation but also severe economic
and racial inequality.
The course had multiple goals: to
explore community-level determinants of
inequality generally, to understand how such
inequalities have evolved in the Delta, and
to work with local residents to document
memories of the social fabric of their
neighborhoods. An outstanding and diverse
group of eight undergraduate students,
along with graduate assistant Rachel Kulick
and Brandeis Anthropologist (and Mark’s
wife) Ellen Schattschneider, participated in
weekly seminars on campus, supplemented
by intensive fieldwork and discussion
sessions during our time in the Delta.
In Mississippi, each student was
armed with an IPod transformed, with the
addition of an “ITalk” adapter, into a digital
audio recorder. Collectively, we recorded
dozens of interviews, shot many hours of
video footage, and gathered hundreds of
archival documents from local libraries.
Students then worked with this raw data to
construct edited audio segments focused on
key themes, ranging from the importance of
legendary Clarksdale-based radio station
WROX, to the role of religion in everyday
life, to the risks associated with
participating in Civil Rights marches. These
segments – along with various photos, video
footage, newspaper clippings, and other
documents – have been compiled on our
course website. We are also in the process
of constructing an audio walking tour of
each neighborhood, guided by the voices and
stories of local residents. These files will
ultimately be “podcast,” allowing anyone
with a digital audio player to download and
listen to them for free (we’ll place a link on
the Sociology department website once
these products go live).
By far the most satisfying and
powerful aspect of this experience was the
fact that we were able to work
collaboratively with local people to
document the histories of their
communities. As part of the process, we
established partnerships with several Delta
institutions – including Delta State
University, the Delta Blues Museum, the
Baptist Town “Back in the Day” Museum, and
the Clarksdale School System – and look
forward to making our work accessible in
ways that continue to strengthen these
connections between Delta residents and the
Brandeis community.
- David Cunningham
The full group in Clarksdale,
Mississippi. From left to right: Margot
Moinester, graduate assistant Rachel
Kulick, Dan Koosed, Maria Pinto, Katie
Kelly-Hankin, Sam Petsonk (kneeling),
Claudia Martinez, Professor Mark
Auslander, Hannah Chalew, Delta Blues
Museum director Shelley Ritter,
Professor David Cunningham, and
Vanessa Leon.
Sociology Newsletter
Fall 2006
Page 4 of 10
Passing: Harriet (Skillern) Miller
Harriet Miller
(Photo courtesy of
the Provincetown
Banner)
(Reprinted and adapted from the Provincetown
Banner)
Harriet Diane Miller, 67, [Ph.D. 1977]
died of breast cancer on Wednesday, Feb. 8, at
her home on Aaron Rich Road in South Wellfleet.
[She was known as Harriet Skillern during her
Brandeis years.]
A member of the Wellfleet Planning
Board since 2004, Ms. Miller was active in many
Outer Cape civic committees and cultural
activities. She served on the Lower Cape
Planning and Development Roundtable and
served on the Local Housing Partnership. She
was a Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater
volunteer, an avid walker and conservationist, a
poet and essayist, and a regular participant in
writing groups and workshops in Wellfleet and at
the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.
Ms. Miller taught sociology for 30 years
at Framingham State College, from which she
retired in 1998. For the last 11 years of her
tenure she chaired the college’s sociology
department. She was also an active supporter of
the Framingham Women’s Health Center. A 1994
sabbatical took her to Trinidad, where she was a
Senior Fulbright Scholar and visiting lecturer at
the University of the West Indies.
Ms. Miller was born in Teaneck, N.J.,
where her parents, the late Abe and Ruth
(Merzon) Miller, ran a newspaper home delivery
business. They were active members of the
American Communist Party until the Red Scare
in the early 1950s. After their deaths Ms. Miller
described their struggles in a memoir titled
“The Daily Workers.”
She was a graduate of Teaneck High
School and the University of Delaware and later
received a master’s degree at Boston University
and a Ph.D. in sociology at Brandeis University.
Her doctoral research was a historical and
sociological analysis of Massachusetts laws on
“Stubborn and Disobedient Children,” later
called “Children in Need of Services.” She
became an advocate for more humane
treatment of children in the court system.
Starting in the early 1960s, Ms. Miller
vacationed every summer in Wellfleet and became
increasingly attached to the town. At retirement
she became a full-time Wellfleet resident, sharing
her home with her long-time partner Bob Morse
and writing poems, short stories and memoirs.
Her interest in land use planning and
conservation was sparked by the discovery that a
developer, trying to get approval for a land-locked
lot, had submitted a plan in her name, but without
her knowledge, to the Wellfleet Planning Board.
The land in question, adjacent to her own
property, eventually became part of the Fox Island
Marsh Conservation Area, partly through her
efforts.
Miller’s essays and short stories appeared
in several magazines and newspapers and she was
a frequent guest on “The Poet’s Corner” on
WOMR-FM radio in Provincetown. In 2002 a book of
her poems titled “A New Place for the Dead” was
published.
Many of her essays and poems dealt with
her experiences with breast cancer, which was
first diagnosed in April 1992, and the resulting
lymphedema, which contributed to the eventual
loss of use of her left arm. In the last years of her
life she drew pleasure from her flower garden,
watching the birds and Stanley Kunitz’s poems.
She is survived by one son, John Skillern
of Framingham and Wellfleet, and his partner,
Patricia Boyer; two brothers, Daniel Miller of
Reston, Va., and Edward Miller of Wellfleet; and
nine nieces and nephews. Her younger son, Robert
Skillern, died in 1983.
She was grateful to Helping Our Women of
Provincetown and its Cancer Support Group and
later to Hospice of Cape Cod and to her friends
and family, who made it possible for her to spend
her last days peacefully at the home she loved.
A memorial service and celebration of
Harriet’s life was held on Sunday, March 5, at the
Wellfleet Public Library. Gifts in her memory may
be sent to the Wellfleet Library Fund, 55 West
Main St., Wellfleet, MA 02667.
Faculty Notes
Gordie Fellman with
Sociology of
Empowerment Class
Wendy Cadge published a number of papers
this year, including: “Ascription, Choice, and
the Construction of Religious Identities in the
Contemporary United States” (with Lynn
Davidman), Journal for the Scientific Study of
Religion; “Making Sense of Suffering and
Death: How Health Care Providers’ Construct
Meanings in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit”
(With Elizabeth A. Catlin), Journal of Religion
and Health; “Religions of Immigrants in the
Mid-Atlantic States,” In Religion in the Middle
Atlantic States: Fount of Diversity. Edited by
Randall Balmer and Mark Silk. AltaMira Press;
“Religious Service Attendance Among
Immigrants: Evidence from the New Immigrant
Survey Pilot”(with Elaine Howard Ecklund),
American Behavioral Scientist; and “Religion
and Public Opinion about Same-Sex Marriage”
(with Laura Olson and James Harrison), Social
Science Quarterly. For more information, see
the article introducing Wendy in this newsletter.
Peter Conrad published several papers this year
including, “Trends in the use of Psychotropic
Medications in Adolescents, 1994-2001,” with
Liz Goodman, Cindy Thomas and Rosemary
Casler, Psychiatric Services; “Up, Down and
Sideways” (Comment on Frank Furedi), Society;
and “Comment” [on Shostak and Ottman
“Ethical, Legal and Social Dimensions of Epilepsy
Genetics”], Epilepsia. His book, The
Medicalization of Society: on the
Transformation of Human Conditions into
Treatable Disorders will be published in Spring
2007 (Johns Hopkins University Press). Peter
gave a talk on “Eliot Friedson’s Revolution in
Medical Sociology” at a memorial session at the
ASA meetings.
Sociology Newsletter
Fall 2006
Faculty Notes (continued)
Sociology
Department Faculty
2006
David Cunningham was awarded a grant from the
Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation to support his
research on the Ku Klux Klan. He has an article, “Paths
to Participation: A Profile of the Civil Rights-Era Ku
Klux Klan,” forthcoming in Research in Social
Movements, Conflicts and Change, and also published
a symposium essay in Law Enforcement Executive
Forum titled “Constructing International Criminal
Threats” and a feature story in the Boston Globe about
the 2005 Edgar Ray Killen murder trial. This past spring
semester, he co-taught a course with Brandeis
Anthropologist Mark Auslander that brought students
and faculty to the Mississippi Delta to engage in
community-based oral history and archival research.
Additionally, he helped co-author the final report
released in May by the Greensboro Truth and
Reconciliation Commission, dealing with the causes
and aftermath of the 1979 killings of five activists by
KKK and Nazi Party members in Greensboro, North
Carolina.
The family of a former student of Gordie Fellman is
endowing the Ari Hahn Peace Endowment for the
Peace, Conflict, and Coexistence Studies program that
Gordie chairs. The endowment will make possible the
annual teaching of three courses. One, Inner Peace and
Outer Peace, was taught but once, three years ago,
from a one-time grant. It deals with a cutting-edge
issue in peace studies. The second, International
Nonviolent Initiatives, was taught three times from a
grant that ran out. It brings nonviolence theory and
practice to the student. The third, Religions and
Peace, has never been offered before at Brandeis. It,
we hope, will explore the role of religions in promoting
war on the one hand and peace on the other. The
Endowment will also allow PAX to add another $5000
annually to the $3000 it has from another endowment,
for Peace Awards, to undergraduate and graduate
students engaged in various kinds of peace writing,
explorations, and activism. Gordie presented a paper
on A Freudo-Marxian Theory of Domination at the ASA
meetings this year. Last fall, he presented a paper on
normative masculinity and peace issues at the annual
meetings of the Peace and Justice Studies Association.
Laura Miller’s latest
book
Karen V. Hansen’s book, Not-So-Nuclear Families:
Class, Gender, and Networks of Care, has been
awarded an Honorable Mention for the William J.
Goode Book Award, granted by the Families section of
the American Sociological Association. This spring she
began her sabbatical to work on her latest book
project, “In the Wake of the Land Rush: Scandinavian
Settlers and Dakota Sioux at Spirit Lake, 1900-1930.”
Her receipt of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial
Fellowship will allow her to extend her leave through
the 2006-07 academic year.
Gila Hayim published her book on Instability,
Complexity and Cultural Change- with an Introduction
by Charles Lemert, The Mellen Press: An International
Publisher of Advanced Research, August 06.The book
makes accessible the new theory and methodology of
autopoiesis, while developing transferable socialpsychological frameworks and applying them to new
cultural modalities. Autopoiesis is a theory of
advanced forms of life, of social divergence and
instability.
Page 5 of 10
Nadia Kim has two articles forthcoming in 2006: “‘SeoulAmerica’ on America’s ‘Soul’: South Koreans and Korean
Immigrants Navigate Global White Racial Ideology” in
Critical Sociology (August) and “‘Patriarchy is so Third
World’”: Korean Immigrant Women and Migrating White
Western Masculinity,” in Social Problems (November).
She is an elected member of the Council of the Asia and
Asian American Section of the ASA.
Laura Miller’s book Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling
and the Culture of Consumption was published by
University of Chicago Press. In May, she was a speaker at
BookExpo America, the annual convention of the book
industry and in July, and presented a paper from her new
research, "Expandable Markets and Sustainable
Consumption: The Role of Industry in the Natural Foods
Movement," at the World Congress of the International
Sociological Association, in Durban, South Africa.
Shula Reinharz’s recent publications include “Feminist
Content Analysis”(with Rachel Kulick) in Sharlene Nagy
Hesse-Biber, ed. Handbook of Feminist Research: Theory
and Praxis; A Fearless Visionary in the Land of Israel:
The Letters of Manya Shohat 1906-1960, (In Hebrew, coedited with Jehuda Reinharz and Motti Golani). Yad Ben
Zvi Press; “Henrietta Szold,” for Encyclopedia Judaica;
and "Participation of American Jewish Women
in Sociology," in Jewish Women: A Comprehensive
Historical Encyclopedia. In addition, Shula writes a
weekly 750-word column for The Jewish Advocate.
Shula’s co-authored book JGirls Guide was selected as a
Koret International Jewish Book Award finalist in the
Jewish Life and Living category.
George Ross returned from sabbatical in Canada and
Europe to begin the -daunting- countdown to retirement
in 2008. Beginning in fall 2006 he will be at Brandeis only
for fall terms. During 2005-2006 he published articles
and chapters in Historically Speaking, Comparative
European Politics, EUSA News, and several edited books
and lectured/gave papers in Cambridge, Montreal,
Dallas, Paris, Brussels, and Trento (Italy). He has been
awarded a Fulbright Grant to Brussels to complete a
project on European elite outlooks on 50 years of
European integration. More generally, he has undertaken
a participant observation project on the aging process.
Carmen Sirianni published his book, The Civic Renewal
Movement in 2005, and continues fieldwork for his
Investing in Democracy: Government as Civic Enabler,
which examines local, state and federal agencies and
policy designs that have been on the cutting edge of
building civic capacity. His article, “Can A Federal
Regulator Become A Civic Enabler? Watersheds at the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,” appears in the
National Civic Review, fall 2006.
Sara Shostak published several articles recently:
“Ethical, Social, and Policy Dimensions of Epilepsy
Genetics, ” (with Ruth Ottman) in Epilepsia.
“Implications of Welfare Reform for the Elderly: A Case
Study of Provider, Advocate, and Consumer
Perspectives.” (with C.L. Estes, S. Goldberg, C. Wellin,
K. Linkins, and R. Beard) in Journal of Aging and Social
Policy; and “The Emergence of Toxicogenomics: A Case
Study of Molecularization.” Social Studies of Science.
For more information, see the article introducing Sara in
this newsletter.
Sociology Newsletter
Fall 2006
Current Graduate Student Activity
Alison Better presented two papers:
“Feminist Methods without Boundaries” at
American Sociological Association Annual
Meeting, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and
“Empowering Orgasmic Women to Change the
World: An Examination of Women-Owned Sex
Shops and Their Relation to the Feminist
Movement” presented at Eastern Sociological
Society Annual Meeting, Boston, MA.
Ethnography Conference, SUNY Stony Brook,
March 31st, 2006 and “Turntablism and
Artistic Status,” at American Sociological
Association Annual Meeting, Montreal.
Betina Freidin received two grants for her
dissertation research: a Dissertation Year
Fellowship from Brandeis and an NSF
Dissertation Improvement Grant, both for
2006-2007. She also presented, "Acupuncture
Worlds in Argentina: Symbolic and Institutional
Boundaries in the Construction of Healing
Expertise," at the International Congress of
Qualitative Inquiry, University of Illinois at
Urbana Champaign, May 3-5 (she also served as
the chair of the Session "Regulation and
Control in Practice"). A paper co-authored
with Stefan Timmermans, "The Medical Care
Penalty: How Health Professionals Delegation
of Care Tasks Influences Mothers’ Labor Force
Participation," is currently under review for
publication.
Cheryl Stults presented a paper, “Internet
Addiction: Emergent Medicalization of a
Behavioral Problem," at the SSSP meetings in
Montreal. She also has two publications:
Catlin, E.A., Guillemin, J.H., Stults, C.D.,
Thiel, M.M., Freedman, J.M., McLaughlin, S.
and Wang, M.L. "Spiritual and Religious
Dimensions of Ambulatory HIV Care" and
"Contestation and Medicalization" (with Peter
Conrad), forthcoming in Contours of
Contestation, ed. Kate Teghtsoonian and
Pamela Moss.
Rachel Kulick co-authored a chapter, "Reading
between the Lines: Feminist Content Analysis
into the Second Millenium," with Shula
Reinharz for Sharlene Hesse-Biber's upcoming
anthology, Handbook of Feminist Research.
Meg Lovejoy presented “Sidetracked:
Professional Women’s Career Interruption and
Redirection” (co-authored with P. Stone) at
the ASA meetings in Montreal.
Deborah Potter presented several papers
including "Vision, Values, and Finances:
Incentives in Lay and Professional Involvement
in Implementing Children's Mental Health
Policy" at the ASA meetings; "Paying for
Democratic Participation: Involving Parents in
Community Collaboratives to Implement
Children's Mental Health Policy" at the SSSP
meetings; and "Role Shifting in Three
Community Collaboratives: Mental Health
Professionals as Partners with Family Members
in Implementing a State Children’s Mental
Health Policy," "Mental Health Advocacy
Organizations as Boundary Spanners: Increasing
Lay-Professional Collaboration in Policy
Implementation," and "Lay and Professional
Leadership in Three Community
Collaboratives: Involving Lay Participants in
Implementing Children’s Mental Health Policy"
at the Eastern Sociological Society meetings
Ashley Rondini presented two papers:
“Identity and Status in Hip Hop Battle DJ
Subculture,” at the Graduate Student
Tom Shields presented "Developing and
Applying a Framework for Youth Participatory
Action Research (PAR)” at the SSSP meetings
in Montreal.
Miranda Waggoner presented a paper,
“Breastfeeding Advocacy in the Midst of
Natural Disaster: Social Implications of the
U.S. Government’s Response to
Women after Hurricane Katrina,” at the MIT
Graduate Consortium in Women’s
Studies Student Conference (MIT conference
title: “Shifting Gender Identities in the Face
of War, Globalization, and Natural Disaster”),
and received a $500 grant from the Politics
Department at Brandeis for completion of her
Master’s Thesis.
Rebecca Zincavage presented several papers
this year: “Nurses as Power Brokers:
Changing Roles and Culture Change in Nursing
Homes” at Academy of Health 2006 Annual
Research Meeting in Seattle June (with Dana
Weinberg); “Of Hearts and Markets” at
Society for the Study of Social Problems
Annual Meeting, Montreal, Quebec, Canada;
“Power in the Middle: Middle Managers’
Contributions to High Involvement Work
Practices” at Eastern Sociological Society,
Annual Meeting, Boston MA (with Dana
Weinberg); and “Fictive Kinship and LongTerm Care Facilities: ‘We Encourage Them to
Think of the Residents as their Own
Grandparents’” at National Caring Labor
Conference, Harry Bridges Center for Labor
Studies, University of Washington, Seattle
(with Lisa Dodson). She is a Research
Associate with “Labor-Management
Partnership for Person-Centered Care in
Nursing Homes,” a collaborative project with
SEIU 1199 (Service Employees International
Union) NYC and Schneider Institute for Health
Policy, Brandeis University. (The project was
featured in the recent edition of Health
Affairs in the “Grant Watch” section).
Page 6 of 10
Sociology Newsletter
Fall 2006
Page 7 of 10
News from Department Ph.D’s
Latest book by
Wini Breines
Newest book by
Harry Greenspan
Susan Bell (1981) has recently published “Artworks,
Collective Experience, and Claims for Social Justice:
The Case of Women Living with Breast Cancer,” with
Alan Radley, Sociology of Health & Illness,
forthcoming: “Living with Breast Cancer in Text and
Image: Making Art to Make Sense,” Qualitative
Research in Psychology, 3:31-44, 2006; and
“Becoming a Mother after DES: Intensive Mothering
in Spite of it All,” in Anna DeFina, Deborah
Schiffring, and Michael Bamberg, eds., Discourse and
Identity, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Wini Breines (1979), of Northeastern University,
published The Trouble between Us: an Uneasy
History of White and Black Women in the Feminist
Movement (Oxford, 2006).
Phil Brown (1979) received the 2006 Fred Buttel
Distinguished Contribution Award from the
Environment and Technology section of the ASA
given annually for outstanding contributions to
Environmental Sociology. He also has several papers
in press: " Embodied Health Movements: Responses
to a ‘Scientized' World" in The New Political
Sociology of Science: Institutions, Networks, and
Power. Kelly Moore and Scott Frickel, eds., Madison,
WI: University of Wisconsin Press and "'A Lab of Our
Own': Environmental Causation of Breast Cancer and
Challenges to the Dominant Epidemiological
Paradigm," Science, Technology, and Human Values,
both co-authored with members of his Contested
Illnesses Research Group.
Graham Cassano (1991) is a Visiting Professor in
Residence at the University of Connecticut - Storrs.
He has forthcoming publications in Critical Sociology
and Rethinking Marxism and has written the "AFLCIO" entry in the "Encyclopedia of Activism and
Social Justice" soon to be released from Sage
Publishers. He continues to sit upon the Steering
Committee of the Union for Radical Political
Economics (URPE) and contributed to the organizing
committee for the conference "Rethinking Marxism
2006" to be held at UMass-Amherst, October 26-28.
Doug Harper’s
latest book
Levon Chorbajian (1974) participated in the
conference Armenians and the Left at the CUNY
Graduate Center in New York. Forthcoming
publications include: "Genocide and Gross Violations
of Human Rights" for the Encyclopedia of Public
Policy (Routledge) and “Elliot Liebow" for the
Encyclopedia of Sociology.
CJ Churchill (2000) was named to the Board of
Trustees of Marlboro College, his undergraduate
alma mater, and is entering his third year of
psychoanalytic training & classes at the New York
Freudian Society and is combining full time, tenuretrack teaching with psychotherapy work.
Patricia Hill
Collins’ newest
book
Patricia Hill Collins (1984) has joined the sociology
faculty at the University of Maryland, College Park.
She has published two books, Black Sexual Politics:
African Americans, Genderand the New Racism
(Routledge 2004) and From Black Power to Hip Hop:
Racism, Nationalism and Feminsim (Temple U.,
2006). She gave two talks at ISA meetings in Durban
this past summer.
Jean Elson (2000) is a coauthor of The Our Bodies,
Ourselves Menopause Book, to be published by Simon
and Schuster in fall 2006. Jean continues as a faculty
member in the Sociology Department at the University
of New Hampshire. In June 2006, her solicited opinion
piece, “Poverty: The Real Terror of Singlehood,” was
featured in Newsday. An interview with Jean on the
growing economic and cultural disparity between
college educated and other women was broadcast on
the NPR program The Front Porch, also in June.
Mindy Fried (1996) continues as a Principal of Arbor
Consulting Partners (website: www.arborcp.com).
Mindy and Claire Reinelt (1996) co-wrote a soon-to-bereleased report for the Rhode Island Foundation, which
presents findings about the impact of the Foundation’s
Fellows Program, a leadership program for non-profit
executives. Mindy has also been doing strategic
planning work for nonprofits, as well as some coaching
for nonprofit executives. This past year, Mindy taught
a course at MIT called “Gender and Race, Work and
Public Policy” for the Department of Urban Studies and
Planning and Women’s Studies. She also presented
“Career Trajectories for Women in Sociology” at the
Eastern Sociological Society Conference in Boston in
February 2006. She also authored “Network Weaving:
Using Organizational Strategies for Work-Life
Integration” published in Work and Family Connection
(co-authored with Mindy Gewirtz).
Harry Greenspan (1986) has published Reflections:
Auschwitz, Memory and a Life Recreated (St. Paul:
Paragon House, 2006). This is a 25 year collaboration
with Agi Rubin, a Holocaust survivor, focusing on
memory in the aftermath.
Mary Godwyn (2000) published “Using Emotional Labor
to Create and Maintain Relationships in Service and
Sales Interactions” (Symbolic Interaction Volume 29: 4.
Fall 2006) and “Women’s Business Centers in the
United States: Effective Entrepreneurship Training and
Policy Implementation,” Journal of Small Business and
Entrepreneurship (with Nan Langowitz and Norean
Sharpe, May 2006).
Doug Harper (1976) rewrote and updated Good
Company, which was his original dissertation under
Everett Hughes. It has been republished as Good
Company: A Tramp Life, by Paradigm Press, with a new
discussion of homeless and tramping. Some other
recent publications include: "Cultural Studies and the
Photograph" in Peter Hamilton, Visual Research
Methods, Sage Press, forthcoming, 211-248, 2006;
"Work and Occupations." in Clifton D. Bryant, Clifton
D., ed. Twenty-First Century Handbook of Sociology.
Sage Publications, forthcoming; "Urban Spaces and
Panoramic Vision." Contexts 5 (1), 46-53, 2006; and
"Seeing Race Through the Lens," Caroline Knowles and
Douglas Harper, Ethnic and Racial Studies 29 (3), 512529, 2006.
Ruth Harriet Jacobs (1969) has published ABC’s for
Seniors: Successful Aging Wisdom from an Outrageous
Gerontologist (Hatla Geroproducts, 2006).
Sociology Newsletter
News from Department Ph.D.’s
Heather Jacobson (2006) has accepted a tenure
track position in the Department of Sociology at The
University of Texas at Arlington. This year she
presented at ESS “Adopting a Child, Adopting a
Culture? A Comparison of Approaches and
Experiences with Birth Culture among U.S. Mothers
with Children Adopted from Russia and China” and at
ASA “Facilitating Privilege: International Adoptive
Mothers, Race, and Russian Ethnicity.”
Mathew Johnson (2003) is currently an Associate
Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology,
Political Science and Criminal Jusitice at West
Virginia Wesleyan College. He was a participant in
the NEH 2005 Summer Institute on Indian and English
first contact narratives in New England.
Janet Kahn (1994) works quarter-time as Executive
Director of the Integrated Healthcare Policy
Consortium -- a broad-based coalition of
conventional and complementary health care
professions, consumers, businesses, etc. working to
shift health care policy in order to give people
access to the full range of health care modalities.;
20% time Director of Research for a consortium of 11
massage schools across Canada and the US who want
help building research capacity in their schools; 25%
time on research, including studies (1) massage for
people with metasticized cancer, at Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center and (2) comparing two
very different forms of massage for chronic low back
pain; and 15% private practice in massage -- staying
sane by actually touching people. She also has an
appointment in Department of Psychiatry at
University of Vermont and works with folks in the
Mind-Body Medicine Center. Finally, she is
spearheading a campaign to raise $1.2M to build first
Tibetan Buddhist "nunnery" in the Western
Hemisphere.
Christa Kelleher (2003) has accepted a post as an
Assistant Professor in the McCormick Graduate
School of Policy Studies at University of
Massachusetts Boston and will teach primarily in the
Program for Women in Politics and the Master of
Science in Public Affairs Program. Her article, "The
Physical Challenges of Early Breastfeeding" is
forthcoming in Social Science and Medicine.
Valerie Leiter (2001) has been named a William T.
Grant Scholar, with five years of funding for her
study, "Transition to Adulthood among Youth with
Disabilities: Qualitative and Quantitative
Perspectives." She continues to direct the Health
and Society program at Simmons College.
Donald Light (1970) has been invited to be a Fellow
at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study for
the academic year 2006-7. He will continue his
recent work on the myths that drive pharmaceutical
policy and the troubled relations between the
pharmaceutical industry and society. Recent
publications include: "Globalizing Restricted and
Segmented Markets: Challenges to Theory and Values
in Economic Sociology.” European Economic
Sociology Newsletter 2006 7(3):17-22; "Commercial
Fall 2006
Page 8 of 10
(continued)
Influence and the Content of Medical Journals." (with
Joel Lexchin) BMJ 2006 332:1444-47; "Contributing to
Scholarship and Theory through Public Sociology." Social
Forces 2005; 83(4): 1647-53 and “Foreign Free Riders and
the High Prices of U.S. Patented Drugs." (With Joel
Lexchin) BMJ 2005; 331:958-60.
Dean Wolfe Manders (1980) published The Hegemony of
Common Sense: Wisdom and Mystification in Everyday
Life (Peter Lang Publishing Co, New York and
International), a Volume in the San Francisco State
University Series in Philosophy.
Marcia Millman (1972) published The Perfect Sister:
What Draws Us Together, What Drives Us Apart
(Harcourt, 2005).
T.L Taylor’s
newest book
Victoria Pitts (1999) was the keynote speaker for the
Bodies in the Making Conference held by the Institute for
Advanced Feminist Research at UC-Santa Cruz in October
2005. Her address was published with other conference
papers in a book, Bodies in the Making, by New Pacific
Press (2006). She also participated in the "Surgical
Solutions" conference at McGill University in Montreal in
March 2006. Her book Surgery Junkies: Norms and
Extremes of Cosmetic Culture will be published in 2007
by Rutgers University Press. She was recently appointed
to the faculty of the Graduate Center of the City
University of New York.
Marilyn Rueschemeyer (1978) recently published Art and
the State: The Visual Arts in Comparative Perspective
(co-authored with Victoria Alexander) with St.Antony's
Oxford/Palgrave Macmillan.
TL (Tina) Taylor (2000) continues to teach at the IT
University of Copenhagen where she was awarded tenure
last year. Her book Play between Worlds: Exploring
Online Game Culture, which is based on an extensive
ethnography of a massively multiplayer online game
(MMOG), was recently published by The MIT Press. She
continues to speak and publish regularly on the subject
of gaming, virtual worlds, and critical technology studies.
She can be found online at
http://www.itu.dk/~tltaylor/.
Becky Thompson (1991) was on sabbatical for the fall
and presented a paper (with Diane Harriford) on “W.E.B.
Du Bois, Condoleeza Rice and the Lessons of Katrina" at
the African Diaspora Conference in Brazil. Becky and
Diane are currently finishing a new book, When the
Center is on Fire: Passionate Social Theory for Troubled
Times (examining how classical sociological theory might
inform an understanding of the Columbine massacre, the
9/11 attack, the Abu-Ghraib prison abuses and Katrina).
She continues to study poetry at the Fine Arts Work
Center in Provincetown and had her first five poems
published this year. She continues to teach sociology and
African American Studies at Simmons College.
Karen Wolf (1993) and Linda Andrist (1993), along with
Patrice K. Nicholas, have published a new textbook, A
History of Nursing Ideas (Boston: Jones and Bratlett,
2006). The book examines nursing ideas and theories
through an historical, theoretical, and professional lens.
Most recent book
by Marcia Millman
Latest book by
Karen Wolf and
Linda Andrist
Sociology Newsletter
Fall 2006
Page 9 of 10
Department Colloquia for Fall ’05 and Spring ‘06
October 6 – E. Kay Trimberger, Professor
Em., Women’s and Gender Studies, Sonoma
State University, “The New Single Woman”
based on her book of the same title.
Feb. 9 - Kathryn Farr, Professor Em.,
Portland State University, “Sex Trafficking.”
Feb. 16 – Denis O’Hearn, Professor of
Sociology, Queens University, Belfast
Northern Ireland, “Nothing But an
Unfinished Song” based on his 2006 book
about Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands on
the 25th anniversary of his death.
March 9 – Kim Williams, Associate Professor
of Public Policy, Kennedy School at Harvard
Denis O’Hearn’s latest
book
University, “Mark One or More: Civil
Rights in Multicultural America” based on
her 2006 book of the same name.
March 23 – Kimberly McClain DaCosta,
Asst. Professor of African and African
American Studies and of Social Studies,
Harvard University, “From Ethnic to
Racial Options: Intermarriage,
Multiracialism and Paradigms of Racial
Change.”
March 30 – Robert Ross, Professor of
Sociology, Clark University, “Slaves to
Fashion and the Three Pillars of
Decency.”
New Ph.D.’s for 2006
in Sociology
New Ph.D. In Sociology
and Social Policy
Paul Hess – “Bureaucracy versus Total Quality
Management: A Sociology Theory of Clashing
Systems, Moralities, and Knowledge Methods”
P. Rafael Hernandez-Arias – “Use of
Population Categories as Variables in U.S.
Health Research: Furthering Reifications while
Hindering Explanations”
Heather Jacobson – “Culture Keeping: White
Mothers Internation Adoption, and the Social
Construction of Race and Ethnicity”
Jennifer L. Zoltanski – “The Construction of
Rape as a Crime against Humanity:
Recognition and Prosecution by the
International Crime Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia”
New M.A. for 2006
Cristen Powell – Joint MA in Sociology and Women and Gender Studies (Aug. ’06)
New Jobs for Recent Ph.D.’s
2006 Ph.D.’s
P. Rafael Hernandez-Arias - Assistant Professor, (tenure track) DePaul University
Heather Jacobson - Assistant Professor, (tenure track) University of Texas/Arlington
2005 Ph.D.’s
Anastasia Norton - Research Analyst, United States Department of Justice
Debra Osnowitz- Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts/Lowell
2003 Ph.D.’s
Christa Kelleher - Assistant Professor, McCormick Graduate School of Policy Studies at
University of Massachusetts Boston
B.A.’s Recently Turned Ph.D.’s
The newest book by
Robert Ross
Janice Johnson Dias ’94 – Ph.D. from Temple University (December 2004)
“Separating Policy Hopes from Policy Realities: A Examination of the Inner Workings
of Welfare-to-Work Training Programs and Their Impact on Recipients’ Employment
Outcomes”
C.J. Pascoe ’96 – Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California at Berkeley
(May 2006)
“’Dude, You’re a Fag:’ Masculinity, Sexuality and Adolescence”
Sociology Newsletter
Fall 2006
Page 10 of 10
Entering Graduate Students
Brian Fair (Soc M.A. program) graduated
from Wesleyan in 2001 with a B.A. in
English.
Jennifer Girouard (Ph.D. Program)
graduated from Marlboro College in 2001
with a B.A. in sociology.
Brandeis University
Dept. of Sociology
M.S. 071
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02454-9110
Phone:
781-736-2630
Fax:
781-736-2653
E-mail:
Send your updates for next
year’s edition to:
[email protected]
We’re on the Web!
www.brandeis.edu/
departments/sociology
Caitlin Slodden (Ph.D. Program) received an
M.A. in American Civilization from Brown
University in 2006, and graduated from
Colby College in 2004 with a B.A. in
anthropology and women’s studies.
Jill Smith (Ph.D. Program) graduated from
UMass Boston with an M.A. in applied
sociology in 2006. She also received an M.A.
in history from Brown University in 2000,
and a B.A. degree in humanistic studies from
Johns Hopkins in 1998.
Christiann Spiegel (Joint M.A. Program with
Women’s and Gender Studies) will receive a
B.A. in women’s studies from Wellesley
College in 2006.
Fei-Ju Yang (Joint M.A. Program with
Women’s and Gender Studies) graduated
from National Taiwan University in 2005 with
a B.S. in geography.
Dana Zarhin (Ph.D. Program) received an
M.A. from Tel Aviv University in sociology
and anthropology in 2006. She was also
awarded a B.F.A. from Tel Aviv University in
2003.
Senior Honors Theses ‘06
Jeff Kosbie: “Gay Rights Organizing in Chile: A Case Study
of MUMS and Movilh”
Rachel Loube: “The Construction of Art and Crime: The
Rise and Fall of New York City Subway Graffiti, 1971-1989”
Ava Morgenstern: “Urban Regimes, Community Organizing,
and Democratic Inclusion in Derry, Northern Ireland, 19212006”
Marc Rotter: “Politics on Campus: An Analysis of
Differential Political Participation among Contemporary
College Students and Campuses”
Ian Sager: “Identity Questions in Scotland: Football, Faith,
and Future Prospects”
Abby Waldman: “Welcome to Class: The Administration of
Controlled School Choice in Cambridge, Massachusetts”
From left to right: Abbie Waldman,
Ian Sager, Ava Morgenstern, Rachel
Loube, Marc Rotter, and Jeff Kosbie